Nichols working toward Olympic goal

Just off Jacksboro Highway, one of Wichita Falls' best-kept secrets lies undiscovered – but the sound of clanging weights might soon give it away.

Three days a week, 15-year-old Wichita Falls High School sophomore Samantha (Sammi) Nichols toils under the watchful eye of coach Glenn Pendlay at Wichita Falls Weightlifting in pursuit of a spot on the 2012 U.S. Olympic team.

And though the training takes place in relative obscurity, thanks mostly to the city's football-mad mindset, Nichols is already a celebrity in her own right.

"Here in Wichita Falls, she's not a celebrity. But in the weightlifting community, she is," her mother Carla Nichols said. "Little girls from all over the country want her autograph and to take a picture with her when we go to competitions."

In just her sixth year of Olympic-style weightlifting, Sammi is already a five-time national champion for her age group.

"When I started coaching her (at age nine), she was pretty mentally mature for her age," Pendlay said. "That made it easier for her to train a lot harder and more productively than most girls her age.

"That's what got her out in front of her age group right from the start."

She missed out on a sixth title thanks, in part, to a trip to Australia with the Eisenhower People-to-People program that caused her to miss 30 days of training prior to this year's competition – but still finished second.

Not bad for a former gymnast, huh?

"When I first started lifting, I had just quit doing gymnastics, so I was kind of skeptical," Sammi said. "But once I started, I loved it. My coach kept telling me I was doing well, so I started to believe him."

Already at 5-9, 145 pounds, Sammi is on the fast track toward reaching her goal. But there's still a lot of work left to do.

"Right now I train about three days a week, unless there's a competition, and then it's only four days," Sammi said. "In the future, I'll have to do more. It gets to the point where you can't improve enough in a certain time period, so you have to step it up a bit."

Unfortunately, all that time spent in the gym doesn't leave time for much else.

"I'm an athletic trainer (at WFHS) and I have a great time doing it," Sammi said. "It's my fun, hang out, be a normal kid time. But it's kind of hard doing it sometimes because it takes away from weightlifting. Not that weightlifting isn't fun but when your training gets stepped up, like any athlete, it's kind of a love-hate relationship with your sport."

On a regular day, her friend and teammate Caleb Ward is usually going through his paces at the gym as well. At different points, each will stop and encourage the other during breaks in their workout.

"Both Glenn and the guys at the Olympic Training Center tell us that if Sammi sticks with it, she has a chance to make the 2012 team along with Caleb," Carla Nichols said.

"That's their goal – they both want to be resident athletes at one of the two training centers at either Northern Michigan University's U.S. Olympic Education Center or Colorado Springs."

The 5-10, 250-pound Ward is a senior at Rider High School and understands all too well the demands on her time that Sammi deals with.

"Sammi is like my little sister, we're really close," Ward said. "Some of the people who are on-track for the next Olympics are already training 10 times a week, so I'm going to have to double my workouts.

"I'd love to play football or something like that, but if I want to be the best at weightlifting, then I have to focus on that."

In that vein, Sammi will travel to Colorado Springs during the holiday break to train at the Olympic Training Center as an invited athlete.

Having already learned about sacrifice and prioritizing at such an early age, Sammi hopes to both leave her mark on the world of weightlifting and to bring attention to Wichita Falls as well.

"It's kind of like it was with Mia Hamm," Carla Nichols said. "When she was here, nobody cared, but when she went to the Olympics, we all claimed her. Why not give them the attention while they're here?"

Staff sports writer Stephen C. Smith, Sr. can be reached after 6:30 p.m. at 1-800-627-1646 or (940) 720-3470. Or you can e-mail him at smiths(at)timesrecordnews.com. Also, see Smith's blog at timesrecordnews.com